7. Conclusions

The aim of this chapter is to provide the reader with a comprehensive and state-of-the-art overview of the normal hand and upper extremity, its physical examination, how to make an accurate diagnosis of the diverse situations that can affect it, and to discuss the most important evidence-based methods of treatment available worldwide today.

**Chapter 2**

**Provisional chapter**

**Regional Anesthesia for Hand Surgeries**

**Regional Anesthesia for Hand Surgeries**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.76786

Anesthesia for hand surgeries is one of the domains of regional anesthesia, where it plays the role, not only as a viable alternative to GA but also as an adjunct to it. The efficacy and inherent advantages of regional anesthesia techniques are widely made use of by the hand and upper limb surgical centers across the world. There are a variety of established regional techniques ranging from major plexus blocks to local infiltration techniques and intra venous regional anesthesia for hand surgeries. The peripheral nerve blocks are recently being performed with ultrasound guidance which is undoubtedly the greatest influence till date in the practice of modern regional anesthesia. There is also a recent trend in the performance of certain minor hand surgeries (e.g., carpal tunnel release) under infiltrative techniques in office-like settings for rapid turnover. This chapter discusses concisely the selection and execution of such techniques in day-to-day practice.

Hand surgeries are amenable to regional anesthesia techniques which are often performed by the anesthesiologists. The ability to perform peripheral nerve blocks is a desirable skill to acquire by the anesthesiologists who provide anesthetics for upper limb surgeries. The advent of ultrasound guidance for these peripheral nerve and plexus blocks has revolutionized the practice of regional anesthesia in the past two decades. The enhanced accuracy and safety with ultrasound guidance offer higher success rate and reduced block latency, thereby

**Keywords:** regional anesthesia, hand surgery, brachial plexus blocks

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Harsha Shanthanna and Manikandan Rajarathinam

Harsha Shanthanna and Manikandan Rajarathinam

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76786

**Abstract**

**1. Introduction**

improving the operator confidence.
